7 New Nuclear Industry Efficiency Bulletins – Nuclear Promise Driven

February 14, 2017— The nuclear energy industry has released seven new efficiency bulletins (EB) for implementation as part of Delivering the Nuclear Promise: Advancing Safety, Reliability and Economic Performance.

Efficiency bulletins released:

• EB 16-32: Electronic Dosimeter Issuance for Visitors Requesting RCA Access -Visitors expected to receive less than 10 mrem during radiologically controlled area (RCA) entries will be monitored using only one form of dosimetry, the electronic dosimeter (ED).
• EB 16-33: System Health Reporting-Low-value system health reports and associated administrative burdens will be eliminated.  Elimination of this low-value activity will enable engineers to focus better on the station’s most important systems and action plans to resolve adverse trends and degrading conditions.
• EB 16-34: Streamline Program Health Reporting -Reduce the number of formal engineering programs that require health reports, and streamline the program health monitoring and reporting process itself.
• EB 17-01: Portable Supplemental Radiation Protection Technician Training and Qualification -Eliminate site-specific qualifications of supplemental radiation protection technicians through development of a standard vendor training program.
• EB 17-02: Self-Protection for Radiological Work Activities-Select radiation workers will be trained and qualified to perform self-protection for activities with low radiological risks to themselves or others.  This initiative will allow radiological protection staffs to focus oversight on higher radiological risk activities and improve the work efficiency for self-protection workers.
• EB 17-03a: Value-Based Maintenance-Changing the industry’s culture of “reliability and any cost” and “more is better” to one where maintenance is treated as a highly valued and limited resource is key to advancing safety and reliability in a cost-effective manner.  This is the principal efficiency bulletin in a series that more effectively integrates cost considerations into equipment reliability processes.
• EB 17-03b: Embracing Cultural Shifts for Value-Based Maintenance-This EB is a companion and enabler to a series of bulletins developing a value-based maintenance strategy associated with preventive maintenance and cumulative impact reduction.

The nuclear industry’s Delivering the Nuclear Promise program has found almost $650 million in potential efficiency improvement savings since it began in December 2015. “Over a thousand staff across the industry have collaborated to develop 46 efficiency bulletins targeting improvements in all aspects of operations. To date, over 95% of these measures are being implemented, reflecting the commitment to continuous improvement,” said Nuclear Energy Institute President and CEO Maria Korsnick.